A Rathlin folk tale from the collection The Man Who Talked to the Wind
THE FISHERMAN AND THE MERMAID
There was once a very poor fisherman who lived on Rathlin. I won’t mention his name, for his descendants live there yet. He had no boat and could only fish from the shore. One summer evening he went to the rocks on the north side of the island, where he had often been lucky enough to catch what fish would keep body and soul together. While he was fishing he heard beautiful singing, but he did not recognise the air and nor did he the words for they were of a strange language. He was drawn to the music like a moth to a flame and then he spied a maiden sitting on the black rocks by the edge of the sea in the late evening light, singing away to her heart’s content.
She was as naked as the day she was born, and never in his whole life had the fisherman seen the like. As soon as he clapped eyes on her he wanted her more than he had ever craved anything in all his born days. Long did he listen to the sweet singing, and he watched the young woman combing her long hair until he was completely entranced. But then he saw something that made his heart almost leap to his throat with fear and wonder. It was a long fishy tail with great fins that she raised as she moved on the rock. It shimmered like oil on water with all the colours of the rainbow. There and then the fisherman almost fainted when he realised that she was not of his world, but a mermaid from the depths of the ocean.
He had heard stories of mermaids many a time but now, even with one before him, it was still almost beyond belief. Evening after evening he went to the same place to fish and each time she was there. Being a bachelor and living a lonely island existence, it did not take him long to fall in love with the mermaid and imagine the happiness she would bring to his life. But how could he capture her? The fisherman sought the help of the Old Hag of Rathlin who, the people always said, knew everything. ‘I have been waiting for you,’ she said with a grin on her face. ‘I was fi shing,’ he said, ‘from the shore – up on the north side.’ ‘Have ye now?’ ‘I saw a mermaid,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Have ye now? You’re a quare lucky boy.’ ‘Some people say you know how to catch them.’ ‘Do they now? You’ve come till the right place then haven’t ye?’ ‘Can ye tell me? I mean … how to get her.’ ‘Oh, she’ll be easy caught but what will ye do with her when you do?’ ‘I want her for my wife,’ the fisherman blurted out in desperation. ‘Do ye now? Well, when you catch her you must take her home straight away.
Take the tail off her – it’ll come away clean like a stocking. But you must never destroy it, or she will die. Hide it away somewhere, but mind, if ever she finds it, she will go back to the ocean, and never more will you see her.’ Well, the fisherman did exactly as he had been told. By a trick he caught the mermaid at low tide. He brought her up the shore and sure enough her tail came away just as the old hag had said. He took her to his tumbledown cabin, such as it was, and hid her tail in the rafters of an outhouse. Before he knew what had happened the fisherman had a beautiful, long-legged woman of the sea for a wife – and a fine wife she was too. Despite all the fisherman’s deceit and selfishness, she was loving and gentle and kind to him. She cooked and kept house for him and as time passed, they had two beautiful children – a girl and a boy. Though they were poor, the fisherman and his family seemed to live quite happily and healthily for years. Never was a there a man on Rathlin Island who was more content than he.
One fine morning the fisherman had some matter or other to attend to on the mainland and he set out in a boat that was head ing for Ballycastle. It was late that night when he returned but as he approached his home he saw the door lying wide to the wall. There was no light in the doorway nor smoke coming from the chimney. When he went in the fire was dead and the place cold and empty. He came across his children whimpering in a corner. When they told their father all about the strange scaly fish’s tail they had found in the rafters, the words of the Old Hag of Rathlin rung in his ears, ‘If ever she finds it she will go back to the ocean, and never more will you see her.’ The children wept and wailed for weeks and months and many a night they cried themselves to sleep, for their father could offer them little comfort and no hope of ever seeing their mother again. But every morning in life when the children awoke, they were well groomed and their faces clean. There was always food prepared on the table and baskets of fish often left at the door. They grew up poor and always lamented the loss of their mother, but never did those two children want for food in their bellies or a comb pulled through their hair. For the rest of his days the fisherman felt the terrible pain of grief in his heart, and often he called to the ocean like a man possessed for his sea wife to come back or even just to show herself, but she never did.
